Wanted: New strategies for Bajan old folks

­IN THIS month of special national focus on Barbados’ elderly citizens, Minister of Health Donville Inniss has chosen to make his dramatic move to prevent the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) from being misused by those who dump these old folks there.
His announcement during a service Sunday at the start of the Geriatric Hospital Senior Citizens Week should, hopefully, have the desired effect of a wake-up call to all who are in the habit of callously abandoning their elderly family members at state-run institutions.
While the Health Minister was lamenting what he described as “this troubling phenomenon”, Reverend Jewel Callender, a pastor of the People’s Cathedral, was appealing for not only religious denominations but organizations and agencies across Barbados to become “actively engaged” in a new national approach to show “loving care and respect” for the elderly.
Neglect of the elderly is a social, cultural and political disgrace for any nation, the more so for those that like to reference comparative advantageous indices released by United Nations agencies.
It is ironical that amid the claims of social and economic progress and the affluence being demonstrated by families across the social and political divide, there are increasing numbers of Barbadians who are at the same time moving, at times with alacrity, to remove their elderly folks from a home environment to private enterprises known as “nursing” or “old folks” homes.
One could perhaps applaud those who at least pay to ensure care for their elderly that, for whatever reason or reasons, they cannot personally undertake. But what’s quite worrying is that, according to reported examples, too many of these elderly folks are simply paid for and forgotten, except for perfunctory visits.
It is also quite appalling to realize that this attitude is now being replicated to affect children who are also being sent off to “homes” and “institutions” when parents have difficulties providing the love and care they need and deserve.
As the Minister of Health carries out his threatened vigorous approach to end the practice of discharged elderly patients of the QEH being abandoned there by family members who took them there in the first place, the ministries responsible for Family and Social Care should come forward with new strategies to address the problem.
These could include structural involvement of representatives from national organizations and agencies to overcome the growing neglect and disrespect for the basic rights of our Bajan old folks.